Griffin: ​Guinta's Fight Against Heroin Must Continue in Congress

PLAISTOW, NH — Heroin addiction can happen to anyone, of any age, race, religion or social status. It happened to my daughter Courtney, who lost her life to an overdose at just 20 years old, although our family tried desperately to find her help.

As many families do, we struggled with our insurance company, which denied Courtney the treatment she needed to recover from addiction. We struggled with our pain in silence, waging our fight to save Courtney’s life in private. Because of the stigma attached to addiction, we kept her condition a secret from friends and relatives. Few outside our immediate family knew of her plight, or ours, when Courtney left us. Could they have helped?

After that horrible day, my wife and I dedicated our lives to removing the stigma of addiction to help more people get the treatment they need. Here in New Hampshire, at the epicenter of a nationwide drug epidemic, those people are plentiful.

In Frank Guinta, who represents New Hampshire’s 1st District in Congress, they and their families have a strong advocate. In Congress, he founded the Bipartisan Task Force to Combat the Heroin Epidemic with over 80 Republican and Democrat members, working together to solve a growing public health crisis.

Like my wife and I, Frank understands the need to raise public awareness. Knowledge of the personal toll heroin takes is especially crucial to generating momentum towards solutions, such as the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, major legislation whose passage Rep. Guinta led in Congress.

This spring, I visited him in Washington to urge House and Senate members to support the bill, which improves federal prevention, treatment and recovery programs, mainly in the form of state grants, and it strengthens law enforcement.

He had invited our family and dozens of others to appear before his Task Force in Washington to speak with lawmakers. We shared heartfelt stories, solutions, and were successful in our mission: Congress appropriated new money to better programs, and the President signed CARA into law.

Rep. Guinta has pledged to work even harder in the next Congress to secure additional funding, as well as to prevent deadly drugs from reaching New Hampshire neighborhoods in the first place. Organized gangs are spreading deadly substances to children and adults alike. Without a truly comprehensive solution including border security, many more will lose their lives.

Rep. Guinta’s empathy for Granite Staters struggling with addiction must spring from the kindness he shows to a close family member with a mental health diagnosis. Addiction frequently coincides with mental health issues and requires the same kind of careful, professional attention.

New Hampshire’s is lucky to have a Representative paying the same kind of attention to our state’s biggest problem. I urge Granite Staters to return Frank Guinta to Congress, where he can continue his good work and prevent more tragedies like Courtney's.

Doug Griffin livesin Plaistow.